Xerox 8400 solid ink printer

[beachycove]

Not a Mac, but hey, there are at least actual OS9 drivers available for it from Xerox. And as it’s a genuine postscript printer with AppleTalk built in, I could perhaps manage to get older systems to print to it as well — all the way back to System 6, could I not, theoretically?

It was just $20 locally, and the $20 included a bagful of black ink with some cyan. I couldn’t resist at the price. Now to find the other two inks and see what it can do....

I had a friend who had one of these solid ink machines years ago, so I’ve seen them in action before and have wanted one to play with myself (at the right price) for a goodly while. Success! I will want to stick with a laser for the bulk of my printing needs, mind, because of the cost and quality,  but this will be an interesting sideline. Anything but another crappy inkjet!

 

[unity]

I have an Phaser 860 wax printer and a Phaser 6180 (toner). The wax printers are interesting, but only ideal for people who print a lot. When you fire em up, then waste a ton of ink (about half a cube) to prime the system. They are pretty much meant to be always on. They also smell a bit. Not bad, but a strong waxy smell. The print has a glossy look to it that I like. I have TONS of ax cubes for mine, but odds are the whole thing will go to the recycle bin. The 860 was made from "Spindler" plastic so lots of things are braking on it, including internal guides. Its hell getting it working smooth now.

 

[NJRoadfan]

A System 6 machine can print to any Postscript printer using the built in LaserWriter driver, albeit in black and white. Adobe may have released a new enough version of their AdobePS driver for System 6 that supports color printers. It can use the PPD from your printer. LaserWriter 8 (requires System 6.0.8) may also work with color as well.

 

[Compgeke]

The wax printers are interesting, but only ideal for people who print a lot. When you fire em up, then waste a ton of ink (about half a cube) to prime the system. 

My experience in a nutshell. I've got a high spec'd 8550DP here (1 gig ram, all the software features) only I print colour so rarely I was wasting more ink on the startup than I actually used printing. Plus the thing had a tendency to dry out the ink after 5-6 startups\shutdowns. Really great quality but unless you print at least once a day, it can get needlessly expensive vs toner.

 

[trag]

A System 6 machine can print to any Postscript printer using the built in LaserWriter driver, albeit in black and white. Adobe may have released a new enough version of their AdobePS driver for System 6 that supports color printers. It can use the PPD from your printer. LaserWriter 8 (requires System 6.0.8) may also work with color as well.

Is that definitely true?   A System 6 machine may not be able to print to a Postscript printer if the PS printer does not have support for the Appletalk protocol.  For example, if only TCP/IP is supported by the printer, I don't think you'll be able to get System 6 to print to it.  Or does System 6 supported printing over TCP/IP?

This has been an issue for me when looking at newer printers.  Plenty of networkable Postscript printers out there, but if any of them still support AppleTalk, they're not admitting it in their spec sheets any more.   Of course, spec sheets have been so dumbed down by most companies, they don't list network protocols at all.

 

[NJRoadfan]

It requires AppleTalk support. Most built-in print servers supported it long after Apple switched to TCP/IP. A mid 00s Xerox should still support it, I know HP's JetDirects still do for the most part.

 

[beachycove]

I think one key to happiness with these printers is never to turn them off. Left on, they don’t purge ink on startup, which is 90% of the problem, and as they go into energy saving mode after x minutes idle, that ought to be a tolerable solution. But, this is more experiment than plan.

 

[techknight]

I used to have a Phaser 300 back when it was Tektronix. 

I had a little fun with that thing as I had a ton of ink. Eventually it failed mechanically saying drum paper jam or something, but it wasnt ever jammed. So i got rid of it. The thing was huge and heavy.